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The advice given in this article is flawed on many fronts. I posted a comment below, read it for more details.

Devaluation of links has been happening for many years. The new notification that Google is sending doesnt change anything. Submitting for re-consideration is the absolute worst thing to do, it will only make things worse in 99% of the cases.

To add one more point. I really wish Carson would rewrite this post. His intentions are good but ultimatly he is providing bad advice. I have clients who have read this post and followed his advice only to dig a deeper hole for themselves. Getting the notification is not the end of the world and if you lose rankings because of overoptimization you are not going to get those rankings back by admitting guilt to Google. You are only going to prompt a manual review of your site in which even a positive outcome is not going to magically bring your rankings back. You are only going to get them back by doing GOOD SEO.

To add to my last point. Your time is best spent building up your site, and doing proper content development and link building. Spending your time removing links in response to a Google notification is only going to make the problem worse in 99.9% of the scenarios.

Rank drops and trust penalties (even harsh ones) can all be overcome over time. If you or your SEO did something very stupid (like overoptimizing for a few keywords), you can still make a come back over time... and do it in a way that will minimize any future drops; while at the same time being proactive and conservatively aggressive with your link building.

Exactly my point. Its a waste of time to submit for reconsideration (Except under very rare circumstances, which I wont go into here)

Ranking losses are going to happen regardless of whether or not you submit for reconsideration. It takes 2-4 weeks after getting the message before the effects of link devaluations start showing up (As ranking drops). 2-4 weeks has been confirmed by hundreds of people accross the web in various forums. I have also seen it happen a dozen times first hand. Submitting for reconsideration is not going to prompt Google to revalue links it devalued.

In the unlikely scenerio that you were able to remove every link that they saw as being unnatural, you may recieve a positive response from them..... BUT YOUR RANKINGS ARE STILL NOT GOING TO MAGICALLY COME BACK. You may shorten the recoverY period of any trust penalty you recieved (thats a big IF though), but that recovery will be blunted by the fact that you probably removed a bunch of links that were likely helping you. Trust penalties are short lived anyways, its better to wait them out and to counter them by doing other trust building activities.

I'm sorry you fell for their trap, and I wish you the best of luck. Unfortunately you have now admitted to them that you have control over removing links, thus you have ultimately screwed yourself in the long run.. Google's algorithms can only guess as to what links are unnatural... and they can only guess as to who built those links (competitors, site owner, random link), but now you have removed all doubt. I hope others learn from your mistake.

Getting the unnatural links detected message means nothing. Google has been finding and devaluing untrusted links (and networks) for a very long time. The only thing new is the notification. All the notification is meant to do is scare webmasters. Fear is the only tool Google has against "unnatural link building".

The argument, that some are making, that it is a good preventative measure to remove spammy looking links, or to submit for reconsideration, is poor advice at best. All you are doing is hurting yourself.

Google doesn't penalize a website purely for having some "unnatural" looking links. Any ranking losses that are experienced would be from previously valued links being devalued (Submitting for reconsideration would not change that). A short 30-90 day trust loss can occur if there are a ton of "unnatural links" detected but that almost never happens to sites with other "Natural" looking links, social signals, quality content etc... Again, submitting for reconsideration will rarely result in a removal of the temporary/automated trust loss. All it will do is prompt Google to do a manual review of your site.. which rarely is a good thing for the webmaster...... accept in the very rare case that there was sabotage. Even then, Google is no longer empathetic to the story that "my seo company did it without my knowledge".

If you are an affiliate site with fluff content, zero natural links, no social signals, etc... Than yes you will probably be "penalized" if a ton of "Unnatural" links are found. But again, this has been the way of the world for many many years.

IF YOU GET THE NOTIFICATION, YOUR BEST BET IS TO IGNORE IT. Continue to perfect your link building skills, build quality content, build a social presence etc... and your rankings will come back in no time.